Apply
July 1 to carry a concealed gun --- A new law will
let Kansans carry hidden weapons, but permits won't be issued until
Jan.1, and training is required of everyone.
Man
Puts Gun In Waistband, Shoots Self In Groin Criminal
Charges Possible ---HOQUIAM, Wash. -- A Hoquiam man who accidentally
shot himself in the groin could face charges of reckless endangerment
and discharging a firearm within the city limits. - Police responded
to a report of shots fired Saturday night and found the 21-year-old
man bleeding. -He told officers he was upset by personal issues
and had fired the gun in the air. While putting the 9 mm handgun
back in his waistband it accidentally fired again.
The Orange County Office for the Aging will be holding the 23rd annual
Senior
Gamesin 2006 for people 55 and older and Trapshooting will
be one of the events will be held at the Shawangunk
Fish and Game Club on Saturday, September 23rd. The same format as
last year will be followed, but we will have a barbecue after the competition.
A small fee is charged and you need t register but you get a t-shirt and
last year the ammo was free. Click
here for info on last year's event.
NEW YORK STATE NEWS
New York State Rifle and Pistol Association Meeting a great success
Saturday,
June the 10th the Annual NYSRPA meeting was held at the Wallkill
Rod and Gun Club in Wallkill, NY. About 450 people were pre-registered
and most of them showed up and all had a good time with lots of food and
the weather held off.
While the winds were high and it was a little
colder than we wanted, as Jacob
Rieper said on his blog, "The annual meeting was a big
success for us, WRGC, and NRA. We made a pile of money for the R&P
and RPA-PAC and signed up lots of new members. The first NRA’s first
Mix-N-Mingle in New York went well with special guests including Assemblywoman
Nancy Calhoun (R-96), Assembly Minority Leader Jim Tedesco (R-110), Congresswoman
Sue Kelly (R-19) and Senate candidate John Spencer. Tedesco was the recipient
of our Legislator of the Year Award."
John Sigler, NRA's First VP gave a great
speech and talked about what happened in New Orleans, LA and how the local
Police took the guns away from law abiding citizens but not the criminals.
He was also able to show a new short film by Ginny Simone that shows interviews
with people who had their guns taken and people who have failed to get
their guns back even after a Federal
Judge issued an order to the NO police to stop taking guns and to
give them back.
Jacob Rieper had several guns, (Beretta,
Benelli, Smith & Wesson, DS Arms, Magnum Research and more,) that
you could shoot for a small fee at the WRGC range and that money went
to the RPA-PAC.
The free "Mix N' Mingle" was well
attended and they had some gifts for most people who attended. and Jennifer-Bradey,
from the NRA did a great job. Her Power Point presentation was well thought
out and presented and covered all of the import points in what we can
do to help and most importantly, the importance of and how we can get
others to help.
Palisades Region of NYS Parks Summer Jobs
The Palisades Region of NYS Parks is looking for dedicated, hard-working
people to join us. We are recruiting new employees to fill summer
and seasonal job vacancies in the following areas:
LIFEGUARDS - $12.56/hour. Must be certified and pass the
NYS Lifeguard test. We are also offering a Lifeguard training
and certification class from June 26 - June 30. Successful candidates
will be hired to work at our pools and beaches.
REGIONAL MAINTENANCE - Salary range $10.21 - $15.89/hour. Vacancies
exist on the road crew and for various trades titles.
PARK AND SITE OPERATIONS - Salary range - $7.50 - $13.39/hour.
Vacancies exist at many of our parks and sites. Positions include
fee collection, building and grounds maintenance, database management,
program development, etc.
Applications are available at park, sites, and regional headquarters.
Call (845) 786-2701 x 232 for answers to questions or assistance. We are
an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. Some jobs have already
started.
2006 - 2007 Hunting Season Dates
This picture was taken early in June and
we have a few more months but the 2006 - 2007 Hunting Season Dates have
been updated on the main Hunting
Page. If you have never seen the page make sure you check
it out. It has lots of good information. Look at the Hunting Index Page
for even more Hunting
and Fishing Links and Information.
By PHILIP
MESSING June 7, 2006 -- A second Big Apple gun store swept
up in the city's crackdown on rogue gun dealers had hundreds of firearms
returned by police, the store's lawyer said yesterday.
Cops handed back 234 firearms to the Woodhaven
Rifle and Pistol Range in Woodhaven, Queens, after seizing the guns in
an undercover sting on May 25. The turnaround came a day after cops returned
247 weapons taken from DF Brothers Sports Center in Brooklyn in the same
sting.
"This is a law-abiding gun shop. This
is not some squirrelly Southern gun dealer trying to make money and is
NRA-happy. They only deal with licensees," said John Chambers, the
lawyer for the Woodhaven range.
Store owner Michael Spallone, 43, was busted
for selling guns to an undercover investigator accompanied by a retired
female cop who showed a Suffolk County pistol permit. The same investigators
were used in the sting against the Brooklyn gun shop.
But Chambers argued the sting operation
amounted to nothing more than entrapment.
He said his client followed procedures
- initially refusing to sell the gun and insisting the investigators procure
required paperwork from Suffolk County police.
The lawyer said that when they returned
the next day, the serial number had been transposed on the paperwork,
so his client refused to let them leave with the gun.
"They said, 'Come on! We're coming
from so far away. It's only two numbers. Don't make us go back to Suffolk
County. What's the big deal?' " Chambers quoted the investigators
as saying. "They were literally badgering him to do this -to make
the sale."
He said after several minutes of this,
Spallone relented and agreed to make the sale if the Suffolk PD gave him
permission. Chambers said Spallone spoke to an official in the Long Island
department and the official said it was OK for him to change the paperwork
to reflect the right number, so he went ahead with the sale.
That prompted the raid and seizure of the
weapons.
But Chambers said city lawyers ultimately
realized no crime had been committed and decided to return the weapons.
Virginia Lam, a spokeswoman for Mayor Bloomberg,
said the gun dealers involved would be "subject to heightened scrutiny
by the NYPD, which will include vigorous monitoring of compliance with
New York City laws."
A Queens law-enforcement source said the
case had not yet been turned over to the District Attorney's Office there,
and prosecutors were prepared to proceed if necessary.
Brooklyn prosecutors said the case against
DF Brothers was still pending. At the time of the bust, police said the
Woodhaven gun shop had sold 44 weapons used in city crimes between 1994
and 2001.
In the same period, they said DF Brothers
had sold 28 guns used in city crimes.
By DAVID B. CARUSO, AP, Writer, 5/26/06
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms
is examining the results of an unusual sting set up by the City of New
York, in which private investigators recorded themselves purchasing handguns
at shops in several states.
Acting independently of law enforcement,
the investigators took hidden cameras into stores to test whether they
would participate in a type of transaction known as a "straw purchase,"
where one person illegally buys a gun on behalf of someone else.
Black-market dealers routinely use straw
buyers to acquire weapons on behalf of people barred from owning guns,
like convicted felons.
The exercise was conducted primarily to
support a civil lawsuit, filed by the city last week, accusing 15 gun
shops in five states of repeatedly selling to questionable buyers.
Between 1994 and 2001, the 15 shops named
in the lawsuit sold at least 640 guns subsequently linked to crimes committed
in New York, including several fatal shootings. The stores were in Georgia,
Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Virginia.
William G. McMahon, special agent in charge
of the ATF's New York field division, announced Friday that the agency
would review the intelligence gathered by the city and target any federally
licensed firearms dealers who broke the law. In a twist, ATF's inquiry will also
include a review of whether the city acted legally in setting up the sting. Several gun-rights advocates have
questioned whether the city itself broke firearms rules or committed fraud
by attempting to simulate straw sales in other states.
During the sting, undercover investigators
working for the James Mintz Group visited shops that had a history of
selling guns later used to commit a crime.
A male investigator posed as the actual
purchaser of the firearm - interacting with sales clerks and examining
merchandise - while a female companion stood nearby and acted disinterested.
When the time came to make the sale, the
woman stepped in to fill out paperwork registering herself as the legal
owner.
Many merchants refused the sale, saying
it looked fishy, but at least 15 went ahead with the transaction, the
city said.
ATF spokesman Joseph Green said Friday that
the actions of both the sellers and the undercover buyers would be examined.
"We are on a fact finding mission right
now, and we told them we are going to have to look into what happened.
We will have to look into whether any laws were violated," Green
said.
Among the issues being explored: Did the
investigators provide accurate information on ATF forms at the time of
purchase, and did they comply with laws requiring them to be residents
of the states where they acquired the weapons?
John Feinblatt, criminal justice director
for Mayor Michael Bloomberg, said the city took great care to structure
the sting in a way that complied with all federal rules.
Police revealed Thursday that a similar
sting conducted at shops within city limits had led to the arrest of two
licensed firearms dealers on misdemeanor charges.
NOTE: When the Times Herald Record had a short article about this, they
left out: "In a twist, ATF's inquiry will also include a review of
whether the city acted legally in setting up the sting."
By DAVID KRAVETS, AP Legal Affairs Writer, 6/12/06
A state trial judge on Monday overturned
a voter-approved city ordinance that banned handgun possession and firearm
sales in San Francisco, siding with gun owners who said the city did not
have the authority to prohibit the weapons.
Measure H was placed on the November ballot
by the San Francisco County Board of Supervisors, who were frustrated
by a rising number of gun-related homicides in the city of 750,000. San
Francisco recorded at least 94 murders last year, a 10-year high.
The National Rifle Association sued a day
after 58 percent of voters approved the law.
In siding with the gun owners, San Francisco
County Superior Court Judge James Warren said a local government cannot
ban weapons because the California Legislature allows their sale and possession.
"My clients are thrilled that the
court recognized that law-abiding firearms owners who choose to own a
gun to defend themselves or their families are part of the solution and
not part of the problem," NRA attorney Chuck Michel said. "Hopefully,
the city will recognize that gun owners can contribute to the effort to
fight the criminal misuse of firearms, a goal that we all share."
The ordinance targeted only city residents,
meaning nonresidents in the city or even tourists were not banned from
possessing or selling guns here.
Warren's decision was not unexpected. In
1982, a California appeals court nullified an almost identical San Francisco
gun ban largely on grounds that the city cannot enact an ordinance that
conflicts with state law.
But years later, in 1998, a state appeals
court upheld West Hollywood's ban on the sale of so-called Saturday night
specials, small and cheap handguns that city leaders said contributed
to violent crime. And three years ago, the California Supreme Court ruled
in favor of Los Angeles and Alameda counties, saying local governments
could ban the possession and sale of weapons on government property, such
as fairgrounds.
That decision, however, did not address
the issue of private property sales and possession, as outlined in the
San Francisco law.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District
of Columbia Circuit also is considering a challenge to a similar handgun
ban in the District of Columbia that alleges the law violates a Second
Amendment right of individuals to bear arms.
The NRA lawsuit here avoided those allegations.
Matt Dorsey, a spokesman for City Attorney
Dennis Herrera, whose office unsuccessfully defended the law before Warren,
said the city was mulling whether it was going to appeal.
"We're disappointed that the court
has denied the right of voters to enact a reasonable, narrowly tailored
restriction on handgun possession," Dorsey said. "San Francisco
voters spoke loud and clear on the issue of gun violence."
The case is Fiscal v. San Francisco 05-505960.
CONGRESS TO CONSIDER GUN BILLS
As early as Wednesday, 6/14/06, the House
Judiciary Committee could vote on a series of important NSSF-supported
bills that will benefit our industry. The bills are:
H.R. 5092 (ATF Modernization and Reform Act) will, among other things,
prevent ATF from revoking a retailer's FFL without a true showing of willful
violation.
H.R. 5005 (Firearms Corrections and Improvements Act) contains seven pro-firearms
industry initiatives, including preventing the Department of Justice from
charging a fee for NICS checks and protecting law enforcement investigations
by barring public disclosure of trace data to the likes of Mayor Bloomberg
for use in civil lawsuits against retailers.
H.R. 1415 (NICS Improvement Act) enhances the NICS system to ensure the
safe and expeditious transfer of a firearm to a law-abiding purchaser.
H.R. 1384 (Firearms Commerce Modernization Act) removes several antiquated
and unnecessary restrictions on interstate firearms business. For example,
the act will allow interstate sale of all firearms, not just long guns,
after a background check and in accordance with the law of both states.
To learn more about these bills and to contact your representative, visit
NSSF's online Legislative Action Center.
Joyce Malcolm's 2002 book has started the
England vs USA gun debate again and how you report on the book does depend
on how you feel about guns. Malcolm's last book, To Keep and Bear Arms:
The Origins of an Anglo-American Right dealt with the gun issue in America.
Here are some reviews:
Senior Games Trap Shooting set for Sept.
23rd.
Judge overturns San Francisco weapons ban
Saturday,
June the 10th the Annual NYSRPA meeting was held at the 
NOTE: When the Times Herald Record had a short article about this, they
left out: "In a twist, ATF's inquiry will also include a review of
whether the city acted legally in setting up the sting."